1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an information-provision apparatus, and more particularly to an information-provision apparatus that references a database according to a request from an information terminal and sends the data corresponding to the request to the information terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the amount of information on the Internet is rapidly increasing, and methods of providing information linked to a database are becoming common. Providing information linked to a database could be performed as described below. That is, when a user uses a personal computer 1202 as shown in FIG. 12 to search for information corresponding to specified search conditions, the user accesses an information-provision server 1201 via the Internet 1203. At this time, the user notifies the information-provision server 1201 of the search conditions by entering keywords as search conditions into a specified form that is provided by the information-provision server 1201.
A send/receive unit 1207 in the information-provision server 1201 receives the search conditions and sends them to the search unit 1205. Here, the search unit 1205 is provided by a program that is executed by the CPU (central processing unit) of the information-provision server 1201, and the work memory 1206 (to be described later) corresponds to RAM (Random Access Memory) that is controlled by that program. Also, normally, this program is provided by a CGI (Common Gateway Interface), and in this example, it is shown in FIG. 13 as search.cgi 1300. The search conditions are given as arguments to search.cgi 1300.
After the search unit 1205 receives the search conditions, it acquires data corresponding to the search conditions from the database 1204, and stores that data temporarily in the work memory 1206. Next, the search unit 1205 enters the corresponding data into the variables of the search.cgi 1300, and at a print command, outputs the data as an html (HyperText Markup Language) file one line at a time. In other words, the output contents 1302 of the print command 1301 shown in FIG. 13 are in a format that contains variables, and by entering the data corresponding to the variables, data in html format containing that acquired data is created, and sent as display data. The portion of the output contents 1302 other than the variables becomes the basis of the display data, and that portion sets the format, or in other words, design of the display data in a browser. An example of the display data is shown in FIG. 14, and it can be seen that specified text is stored in the variable portion of the output contents 1302 to form the display data (searchresult.html) 1401.
Through the operation described above, display data having html format and containing data corresponding to the search conditions is created each time and sent to the personal computer 1202. In this way it is possible for the personal computer 1202 to reference data matching the search conditions in a specified format.
In the operation described above, the format is given in the program provided as the search unit, so in the example above when changing the format of the display data, it becomes necessary to rewrite the search.cgi itself.
However, in order to perform the rewriting, knowledge of rules for giving the design of the display data in html format is necessary. Also, in addition, knowledge of programming is necessary, so there is a problem in that it is not easy for anyone to change the format.
Moreover, in the case in which a plurality of formats is needed, a plurality of programs is also necessary, or it is necessary to perform steps corresponding to a plurality of programs in one program, and thus there is a problem in that the program itself becomes large.
Furthermore, bugs may exist in the program, and in the case in which those bugs apply a load to the server, the reliability of the system itself decreases, so simply executing a program that has been rewritten by the user and of which the proper operation cannot be assured must be avoided.
Also, in order to rewrite and register the program, a very high level of control authority of the information-provision server is necessary, however giving this kind of authority to the user can be said to be a source of trouble.